Review by Choice Review
This polemic urges consideration of the costs as well as the benefits of the liberal trading order that has been created over the last half century, culminating in the Uruguay Round of negotiations under the auspices of the GATT and the creation of its successor organization, the World Trade Organization. The origins and dynamics of global trade negotiations are discussions in extensive and vaguely conspiratorial detail, discussion which is also applied to regional trade arrangements such as NAFTA and the EU. The principal critiques of the process and its results center on the usual arguments surrounding adjustment costs and the proper role of the market, as well as problems relating to trade in services and the environmental impacts of liberal trade and global reallocation of production. All of these points have been raised before, although the author restates them in a logical and readable manner. Still, one gets a feeling of lack of discipline in the argumentation. Sure, there are costs to the workings of the global market mechanism, but given the abject failure of alternative resource-allocation regimes, the fact is that free markets set the key benchmark. Extensive bibliography; good index. Recommended for college and university libraries. I. Walter; New York University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
